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American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO) in Chicago yesterday report on exercise reducing psychological distress. Whether cancer outcome will be impacted is not yet known and will require study but inflammation may impact cancer progression.

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Exercise is even more critical in those undergoing hormone therapies.

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This was a small randomized study for seven weeks.

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Patients receiving usual care experienced a 0.08 log10 increase in pro-inflammatory interleukin-6 production, while patients treated with an exercise program experienced a 0.03 log10 decrease in IL-6 (P<0.05), said Charles Kamen, PhD, research assistant professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

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In his oral presentation … Kamen and colleagues observed a similar relationship with another pro-inflammatory cytokine, interleukin-8. In the control patients, the researchers noted a 0.03 log10 increase compared with a 0.04 log10 decrease among the exercise group, Kamen said.

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Using the Profile of Mood States (POMS), the research team determined that psychological distress decreased 5.17 points among the exercise group but increased 2.43 points in the patients who were in the usual control group (P=0.02).

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“This study supports the use of exercise for cancer patients for reducing psychological distress and suggests a potential biological mechanism by which this improvement occurs, namely by reducing systemic inflammation,” Kamen said in his presentation….

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The POMS scores were overall significantly in favor of the exercise group, and the subscales all trended in favor of exercise, except for the anger subscale in which there was virtually no change, Kamen said.